International

SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur recently visited Sri Lanka. The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean to the south of India. With a population of 22 million, it relies heavily on its textile and clothing industries, which account for 70% of the country’s exports, with the US as its principle customer and the EU in second place. A war which lasted for years between the Tamil Tigers and the Singhalese-dominated government ended with the Tamil Tigers’ surrender in 2009, but this failed to bring about real peace or equal treatment for Tamil citizens. It was human rights abuses following the surrender which led to suspension by the EU of its special trade relationship with Sri Lanka, known as GSP+. The renewal of GSP+ is being questioned by Sri Lankan textile workers and others who challenge the EU’s claims that workers’ rights have improved.

On the initiative of SP Member of Parliament Peter Kwint, MPs today voted to oppose the European Union to broaden what is allowed in advertising aimed at children. “Brussels wants advertisers to be able to aim their message at children when a programme is on which isn’t specifically for them, but is nevertheless watched by large numbers of children,” Kwint explains. “I don’t know why. The interests of children are far more important than those of the  multinationals who want, for example, to advertise unhealthy junk.” 

On 16th May the Dutch Parliament voted in favour of a motion proposed by SP Member Maarten Hijink and the PvdD’s (Party for the Animals’) Esther Ouwehand asking the government to ensure that employees of the European Patent Office (EPO) can take their employers to court in the Netherlands.

National and regional parliaments must approve free trade treaties before they can definitively enter into force. That is the gist of the position taken by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the highest European Union court, which the European Commission had asked for clarification. What this means is that numerous comprehensive treaties negotiated by the Commission over recent years will now have to be presented to thirty-eight parliaments throughout the EU, giving the member states more power to halt controversial agreements.

Why does the European Central Bank pump a cool €60bn per month in debt securities into banks and corporations when that money does not go straight into the economy? That was the most important question from SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten to the ECB president, the Italian former investment banker Mario Draghi. Draghi is today visiting the Dutch Parliament on the initiative of the SP.

The European Commission should not have refused to accept the Citizens’ Initiative against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which on its final presentation had been signed by 3,284,289 people. This is the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The SP welcomes the ruling, which points the way to an important role for Citizens’ Initiatives in strengthening democracy in the European Union.

Whether the British took the right decision when they opted to leave the European Union is primarily a question for the British themselves. In the European Parliament, however, some MEPs see the matter rather differently. They’re still in shock because for the very first time a member state wants to say goodbye. So they believe that Brexit must become a cautionary tale, with the British experiencing so much misery that in the future no-one will any longer dream of threatening to leave the EU.